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Buki, TV, and Esther and Hugo's Wedding

Thank you for all of the healing energy for my skinny little Buki man. He's hanging in here but he's very weak. Please keep it coming, he needs all the help he can get. I'm hoping he'll be able to pull through this. He's still at the hospital and wasn't strong enough for the light anesthesia he needs for the scope. They have him on an IV sugar drip to try to keep his blood sugar up and are hoping they can get him stable enough to try to get at whatever is in his stomach. I know it doesn't sound good but he's such a fighter and has lived so long that I just feel like he might be able to make it through this, if we can just keep him alive long enough to fix whatever is wrong with him. If there's anything I can do to help him, I will. I'm even considering getting part-time a job at the vet hospital, (my vet/pal told me they're hiring), because with the discount I'd get it'd really help me pay the pet bills.

I'm watching an old Tammy, (Debbie Reynolds -- Tammy and the Bachelor), movie while writing. I've never seen one of these all the way through. They've always seemed too syrupy and cornball but I must be in that kind of mood tonight. Plus, the little description on my DVR hooked me, A Louisiana bayou girl is invited to stay on a playboy pilot's fallen family plantation. Let's see, we've got Louisiana, a young innocent woman in braids, moss swaying from the trees, the whole mysterious bayou thang, and an old plantation that she's going to help bring back to it's former glory, (minus the evils of slavery), a pink Cadillac convertible, there's even a goat, and best of all, an overweight, eccentric, cat-loving, artist auntie, ("If it hadn't been for my being tied down to this old place I could have lived in New Orleans and led an exciting, unfrustrating, bohemian life.") It's a walking romance novel -- with cats. After the incredibly sad and challenging things I watched earlier tonight, all I can say is count me in.

Scott came over tonight. We ordered Thai food and watched Michael Palin's latest travel documentary about the Himalayas, then Entourage, and then we watched this heartbreaking but spiritually edifying documentary about a thirty-six year old man whose suffering makes anything I've ever seen look like, well, you just have to see it. It's called The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off. Of course with a title like that, you know I was all over it. Like sticky and white on rice, right? After Scott left I watched a reality intervention show about a coke addict and a heroin addict. I think you can see why I'm leaning towards lighter TV fair at this point. Would anyone like a dried sour cherry? I love these things.

I saw most of Bewitched today while Shayan and Beau played at the arcade in Westwood. I was late so I missed the beginning. I love Will Ferrel, ("We're going streaking"), and Nicole Kidman is so unbelievably beautiful that I'll pretty much put up with anything just to see her and study her. I've seen every movie she's ever done, including her early Australian work -- even the BMX thing. I liked her before Tom Cruise did, before Dead Calm even, if you can believe that. Plus it was directed by Nora Ephron.

One of my favorite movies, Heartburn, was written or directed by Nora Ephron. I think it bombed, but I loved it; of course that doesn't mean anything because I've loved quite a few movies that bombed and conversely I've hated a few that were big box-office successes. My favorite character in Heartburn, apart from Meryl Streep, of course, was her housekeeper, she was wonderful. I'm also one of the only people I've ever met who loved Maxie, a fluffy movie about old Hollywood, the desire for fame, and reincarnation. I saw it three times -- three times in an empty theater in Westwood. How any film with Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin, and Ruth Gordon, (in her last role, I think), could be so overlooked, when such crap can make so much money, is just beyond me.

Here's my buddy Esther kissing Hugo just after they cut their wedding cake. I can't believe it's been twelve years or more since she first walked in our door.

Beau, Scott, and I went to Esther and Hugo's wedding yesterday. It was a big Mexican Catholic wedding at a church in Hawthorne. I noticed that most of the houses and apartment buildings had their addresses painted on their roofs in big numbers. I wondered if this was for police helicopters because the neighborhood is extra funky, or just in case one of the airplanes landing or taking off from nearby LAX veered off course and smashed into one of them. How do they make decisions like this, and then how do they implement them? Do they just show up at your house with brushes and buckets, or do people climb up on their roofs and paint their addresses themselves because they want the cops to be able to find them in the midst of some gang war or riot?

Sweet little kids at the altar.

There were five couples all getting married at the same time in this big group wedding. They did all of the same things you'd do in a traditional wedding, only they did everything times five. So, five brides, five dressy white dresses with trains and veils, five bouquets, five grooms, and a lot of very dressed up friends and relatives. Esther looked so pretty. She's been worrying for months now about how she'd look in her dress. She's very overweight and had hoped she'd be able to lose it before the wedding. I so understand, but I don't care how fat she is, I love her just the way she is, and to me she was beautiful. I imagine that's just how Hugo and her family saw her. I'm really happy for her -- so happy that after everything Hugo and she have been through, (his horrible alcoholism and everything that happened as a result of this), that they have been able to put it all behind them and finally get married. I'm especially happy for their daughter Andrea who has been wanting them to get married for most of her little life : )

Scott spotted this shot and I actually managed to wrangle the lens off of the camera and get it in time. I so wish I'd had a faster camera. I love taking pictures at weddings, but I obviously haven't mastered mine yet. I would have been so much better off with my Nikon 35mm or even just a little point and shoot camera.

The wedding and the party afterwards went on for hours. I'm nuts about weddings -- can't get enough of them -- but after eight hours of this, even I was worn out and dying to go home. Scott and Beau impressed me so much. I'd expected them both to be difficult and whiny but instead they were generous, patient, and kind about all of it. The woman who had been hired by the church to be in charge of way too much for the reception didn't even bother to show up until about an hour after the wedding ended. She'd sent the flower arrangements, the decorations, and the food ahead, but all of it needed to be set up, and no one had been assigned to do this. So all of the brides and grooms and their families had to stand around outside the parish hall, in the parking lot, in the sun, while a few kind people pitched in and tried to get it all together. We set up the tables and chairs, tied the pretty fabric flowers and ribbons to the backs of all of the chairs, put the tablecloths on, assembled the tall centerpieces, (luckily someone had a glue gun), and some of the parishioners tried to get the food together.

This is one of the fabric flowers that I "borrowed" to give to Esther and Hugo.

After much more than an hour, (Maybe two), the wedding couples were finally allowed to come in and sit down. Esther's nephew Ronald and her son Eduardo, who are both so dear to me, brought their DJ set up and played all of the music for the party. They did a great job, seriously, I was proud of them, and Beau had so much fun hanging out with them, but it was LOUD, and after hours and hours of Mexican banda music, it all kind of starts to blend together, so that last night when I went to bed I kept hearing this umpapa beat in my head and even now my ears still feel like they've got marshmallows stuck in them.

Here are Eduardo and Beau manning the music. See what I mean about the blurry thing? Beau looks like he's missing a limb : )

It took forever for anyone to serve any kind of food, people were so hungry they went to the local convenience store and came back with bottles of coke and bags of spicy Cheetos, which kind of spoiled the look of the wedding tables, but I was so hungry I was grateful to have anything to eat. Eventually someone put a couple bowls of salsa and another bowl of cilantro and onions on the tables, but it took another half hour before any chips arrived. I felt so bad for Esther and her family because it was so sad that things were so messed up, but in the end it really didn't matter because everyone was so happy.

These were some cute little kids who wanted to pose for me. I looove kids at weddings. Well, actually, I just love kids.

I'm still learning how to use my birthday camera. I think I actually took better pictures with the old one. I must have accidentally set something to fuzzy on this one because the shutter stays open for too long, and so many of the pictures come out blurred. Sometimes they look really cool like this, but I'd like to be the one in charge of the outcome rather than some digital camera gremlin. I took a few hundred pictures so it'll take me a while to edit, print, and then put them in an album for Esther. I managed to snag a couple of souvenirs from the wedding to give to Esther and Hugo. I took a few of the fabric flowers that were tied to the backs of the chairs, a piece of this silver net fabric and a couple of the little plastic champagne flutes that have ribbons with their names and the date of the wedding printed on them. I'll hot glue them on to the cover of the photo album. I'm going to send the pictures off for printing because it's too big of a job for my printer. I had no idea that 4x6 digital prints cost 25 cents a piece. Does anyone know who I should use? Do you have a favorite printing site?

Okay, I really hate pictures of myself, and I particularly hate this one. I've gained weight and even though I'm trying to be kind to myself, and I'm working on taking it off, I can't stand to see how much I change. I had to include this because Scott would be hurt if I didn't. Look how blue his eyes are. I wish we could have a baby, but I think we're too old and he's never seemed too thrilled about the idea, sigh.

Well, I'm all talked out for the night. I'd like to try to catch up with some of you.